September 20 – The Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League (NWSL) within the US has awarded a 15th franchise to Boston with the membership anticipated to start play within the 2026 season.
The brand new group might be owned by Boston Unity Soccer Companions, a gaggle of predominantly ladies traders, who reportedly paid $53 million for the franchise. The league mentioned 95% of the invested capital comes from ladies and 40% from traders of color.
Jennifer Epstein, Juno Fairness Founder and a minority proprietor of the NBA’s Boston Celtics, will function the controlling accomplice.
“Boston is the best sports activities metropolis on the earth, and we’re thrilled to convey the NWSL again to this passionate fan base,” mentioned Epstein.
“Our purpose is to construct a championship-calibre franchise that the town will be pleased with, each on the pitch and locally. We might be relentless and daring in our quest so as to add one other chapter to the town’s unequalled sports activities legacy.”
Boston has had a ladies’s professional group earlier than with the Boston Breakers taking part in within the NWSL between 2013-17, however struggling on and off the sector, taking part in at three totally different house stadiums earlier than closing. Nevertheless that was six years in the past and the ladies’s recreation commercially is in a really totally different house.
“There’s a whole lot of consideration on ladies’s sports activities proper now, a world rise in fandom in not simply ladies’s sports activities however particularly round ladies’s soccer,” Epstein instructed the Boston Globe. “It’s an excellent second in time. There’s a whole lot of momentum within the league.”
Boston Unity Soccer Companions is the primary funding for Monarch Collective, the primary fund targeted solely on funding in ladies’s sports activities, based by Kara Nortman and Jasmine Robinson.
Two different NWSL growth groups have been introduced earlier this 12 months, Utah Royals FC and Bay FC, who will each start play in 2024.
The group will play its house matches in a modernised George R. White Stadium in historic Franklin Park within the centre of Boston. Boston Unity Soccer Companions mentioned it’s working with the town to take a position “vital sources to rework the stadium right into a top-tier facility”.
“I’m excited to develop the NWSL’s footprint and proceed its transformative progress in our return to Boston, one of many world’s most iconic sports activities cities,” mentioned NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman.
“We’re very proud to welcome Boston Unity Soccer Companions to our possession group. They carry a formidable roster of enterprise leaders dedicated to persevering with Boston’s legacy of sports activities excellence and delivering a profitable group to a really passionate fanbase.”
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